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Reed Richards (Earth-21399)
History Early Life Reed Richards was born in Queens in 1942, the only child of watchmaker Nathaniel Richards and his wife Evelyn. From an early age, Reed's parents suspected their child was special – the boy was remarkably intelligent, well ahead of his peers. While other children played sports, Reed devoted himself to science. Reed's intelligence naturally made him a target of bullying during his school years. College Reed's genius was such that he actually skipped ahead from ninth to twelfth grade, and eventually enrolled in NYU in pursuit of a physics doctorate. His roommates during this time were Benjamin "the Grimm Reaper" Grimm, who was enrolled on a football scholarship, and Viktor Domashev, an imperious foreign exchange student. Reed and Ben became fast, fierce friends, though Viktor was immediately disdainful of them both. Reed and Viktor argued constantly over each others' theses and calculations; Reed initially viewed these as friendly exchanges of ideas between equals, but Viktor saw them as direct attacks on his own intellect by an arrogant American. Eventually, Viktor unceremoniously stormed out of the university in anger after another argument, and Reed never heard back from him since. Reed's dream was of the day that mankind would break free of their earthly prison to make their way into the infinite universe – a dream to which Ben half-jokingly said that should Reed ever get a ship working out, he would want to pilot it. NASA Career After college, Reed' was offered a position in NASA as part of the research team for the Apollo project. Reed happily took the job, and his equations were instrumental in allowing man to fly to the Moon. In his off time, Reed befriended fellow researcher Franklin Storm and began dating his daughter, Susan. In 1970, using instruments that were left behind on the Moon, Reed somehow discovered an unusual radiation signature emanating from the Fra Mauro Highlands, and requested another mission for the purpose of investigating. This request was granted after some deliberation, and Reed selected Ben Grimm, his old high school friend who had recently been hired as a pilot, to fly the shuttle. During the maiden flight of Apollo 13, Reed, Ben and fellow crew member Bentley Whitman landed in the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon. With Whitman in the command module, Reed and Ben went out to dig for materials to conduct experiments with, only to dig up a strange, glowing blue cubical artifact, which they transported back home in a containment unit. Birth of the Fantastic Four Back on Earth, the Cube was moved in secret to the Baxter Institute, a secret government research center. Despite his best efforts, Reed and the other scientists at the Institute had trouble figuring out the Cube's true nature, so Reed called upon Viktor Domashev to help. Viktor accepted the offer only so that he could prove his superior intellect. Reed and Viktor made significant headway in understanding the Cube, discovering it was a conduit for "some unknown form of radioactive energy". However, Viktor secretly began developing a machine to harness the Cube's power in the hopes of figuring out where his mother had gone and potentially freeing her, but his calculations were off by two crucial decimal points and the experiment quickly got out of control. Reed, Viktor and a number of nearby bystanders – including Ben, Susan and her younger brother, Johnathon – were zapped by the rampant energy unleashed by the Cube. Reed, Ben, Susan and Johnny were transported outside the facility, while Viktor was grazed in the head, leaving a single, glowing scar. Reed and his compatriots woke up in the middle of a field in Nevada, and discovered that the Cube's radiation had altered their bodies - Reed was transformed into an elastic being that could remold itself into a variety of shapes. Before any of them could come to grips with their newfound abilities, they were picked up by military officials under the command of General Walter Allan and placed under quarantine.Category:Heroes Category:Created by N0bodii Category:Earth-21399 Category:Heroes of Earth-21399 Category:Versions of Mister Fantastic